


A View from a Hayloft

by semperama



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Historical, Bullying, Falling In Love, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:15:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21913837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperama/pseuds/semperama
Summary: It has been three years since Lovett returned home from the war, and he still has no direction, so his parents encourage him to go stay on a cousin's farm a while to get a change of scenery and hopefully make himself useful. There he meets Tommy, who ends up saving him in more ways than one.
Relationships: Jon Lovett/Tommy Vietor
Comments: 11
Kudos: 60





	A View from a Hayloft

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trailsofpaper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trailsofpaper/gifts).

> Thanks so much to the eternally lovely @trailsofpaper for 1. giving me this idea in the first place and encouraging me to write it, 2. [making the most delightful art in the world](https://trailsofpaper.tumblr.com/post/189475440478/that-episode-where-tommy-said-haymaker-but-my), and 3. reading it over before I posted it to reassure me that it wasn't awful. <333
> 
> Note: all characters in this other than Jon, Jon, and Tommy are original characters because I didn't want to bring any real family or friends into this. Also Lovett and Favs are cousins in this fic, and that is obviously not the case in real life. You gotta do what you gotta do, right? Thanks for bearing with me in my first attempt at Tommyjon fic!

They could have sent him to worse places, Lovett thinks as the scrubby hills roll by outside the train window. His father has an aunt who lives somewhere entirely abominable—Wyoming, or perhaps Iowa—and he would rather throw himself under the train than let it take him to such a place. But then, maybe a farm is a farm no matter where it is, and he would not be able to tell one in Kansas or one in Wyoming from one in the rural land south of San Francisco, far enough from his home in Los Angeles that he may not recognize it as California at all.

His parents are merely worried about him, he knows, and he tries not to be angry at them for it. In the three years since he returned from England, he hasn't done much with himself, and though they tried not to press him on it for quite a while, it came as no surprise that their patience couldn't last forever. Lovett didn't have to see the concern in their eyes to feel ashamed of himself; the notebooks he kept, full of musings and scribbles, steadfastly refused to turn themselves into anything publishable, and even he came to agree that a change of scenery might be the best thing for him.

The farm belongs to his mother's cousin, and she and her husband were more than happy to put Lovett up in exchange for a small fee and the convenience of an extra pair of hands. Lovett is sure they will see him and soon rethink the idea that he could be at all useful, but at least he has some money squirreled away, so his parents won't need to add to his humiliation by paying room and board. 

So north he goes, with one trunk and one bag and a satchel full of hopeful, empty notebooks. The fresh air will do him good. Or at least that's what everyone says.

———

"Tommy will meet you," Cousin Ava said on the phone. Lovett hasn't the faintest clue what a Tommy is, and so he spends a good twenty minutes standing awkwardly by his luggage, peering into the face of every passerby as if they might have their name written on their forehead. He is staring down a short, dark-haired man who has been leaning against the wall with a bored expression on his face when someone taps him on the shoulder. 

"Jon Lovett?" the man says, but Lovett is too busy staring to answer him.

He should have been warned. Tommy will meet you, and oh by the way, he is devastatingly handsome. Tommy looks like a cowboy from the movies, with his hat in his hand, sandy hair and denim trousers and crow's feet at the corner of his eyes. Lovett doesn't often find himself tongue-tied, but he is tongue-tied now, and he is conscious of the seconds slipping by in which he still hasn't spoken. Not even to confirm his name. He is standing dumb and open-mouthed. Probably looks touched in the head. What a first impression this is. 

"Mr. Lovett?" Tommy says again, frowning now.

It's the "mister" that snaps him out of it. "I'm no mister," he says quickly. "Lovett, yes. Mister, never." He clears his throat and forces himself to stick out his hand, though he can think of few things more distasteful at this moment than a formal handshake. "You must be Tommy?"

"That's me," Tommy says. His hand engulfs Lovett's. Swallows it right up. Long fingers, broad palm, calluses from years of manual labor. Lovett's own hands are smooth as a baby's, and he has never been more conscious of that fact than right now.

"Do you have a last name, Tommy?" Lovett asks as he concentrates on pulling his hand back at a reasonable pace, not yanking it back and shoving it in his pocket like he wants to.

"Vietor," Tommy says.

"So not one of Ava's bunch then." Cousin Ava has a whole slew of children, more than Lovett could have kept up with even if he wanted to. Most of them must be grown by now and probably off in the world somewhere, but Lovett figured one or two must have stayed to help with the farm. But apparently Tommy is not one of them.

Tommy shakes his head. "Nope. They're family to me, but not by blood."

Lovett nods as if that means anything to him. It doesn't. His blood family is barely family to him, which is why he's standing on this train platform to begin with. 

"These are my bags," he says lamely, gesturing at the assortment of luggage at his feet. "I assume you came in a—"

———

Truck. He came in an old Ford pickup truck. It was green once, Lovett thinks, but it's so faded and scratched and dirty, it's hard to say what color it is now. He winces when Tommy hoists his bags into the bed. He hopes they weren't using it to haul manure any time in the recent past, or else he might have to call and beg his parents for money for new bags.

The station is in the middle of a small town—Lovett spots a post office and a drug store and a church and not a whole lot else—but once they get a few minutes outside the town, the roads get rougher and rougher until they're bouncing over the ruts in dirt roads, miles and miles of fields and pastureland stretching out around them as far as the eye can see.

Cousin Ava's farm—her husband's farm, that is—deals in vegetables mostly, but they have a few dairy cows too, just enough to sell some milk in town and keep some for their own use. Then there are the horses, both companion and working animals. Once upon a time Walter, Ava's husband, had aspirations of breeding racehorses, but it was too much for them to take on. They had to worry about keeping a roof over their head, after all.

Lovett hears all this from Tommy on the drive. It shames him a little that he didn't know it already; these are questions he probably should have asked of his parents when they told him which relative agreed to put him up. Tommy doesn't seem to mind filling the silence though, and soon Lovett knows more than he ever cared to know about the cost of a good farrier and the kind of fertilizer that produces the juiciest tomatoes.

"How long have you been working for Walter and Ava?" Lovett asks when he realizes it was probably rude of him not to ask sooner. 

"Oh, not long." Tommy's hat is pulled low, and the shadows make it hard to read the expression on his face. "I only came out west recently. I'm from Massachusetts originally."

"I was born in New York," Lovett says, as if he expects their shared east coast experience will bond them together somehow. "What brought you out here?"

Tommy doesn't answer that one. Doesn't even try to. He shrugs his shoulders, clenches his jaw, and before Lovett can pry further, they are turning down a narrow lane, this one the bumpiest of all. Soon the farmhouse comes into view.

It's bigger than Lovett was expecting. More attractive too—two stories, pale yellow, black shutters, and a wide porch on which he can see a pair of rocking chairs and a wicker love seat. A cypress tree towers over the west side of the house, providing much needed shade from the afternoon sun. Just beyond it, Lovett can make out a large white barn and some other outbuildings—likely quarters for the hired hands and storage for the various harvests. And all around them, sprawling as far as the eye can see, are pastures and fields, some of them planted with vegetables, some of them hosting grazing animals, some empty, and all lined in neat whitewashed fences.

"Not bad, huh?" Tommy says as he pulls the car up near an assortment of vehicles beside the house—another beat-up old truck, a horse trailer, and a couple well-kept sedans that must serve as the family cars. He looks over at Lovett and lifts his eyebrows like he's expecting him to disagree.

"I suppose it'll do," Lovett says blandly. In truth, his spirits are rising already.

———

Ava greets him with a warm hug and shows him immediately to his room, a kindness for which he could kiss her. He wants nothing more than to wash the smell of train from his skin and avoid people for a little while. It's early in the day yet, and most of the men are still out working, so the house is quiet around them, almost eerily so. Lovett savors it, because he knows it won't be this way for long. 

The room Ava sets him up in is in the very back corner of the house. Half the view from his window is obscured by the trunk of that cypress, but he doesn't mind. He can see down to the barn at least, and he can just make out Tommy walking toward it, smacking his hat on his thigh to get the road dust off. What will he be doing at this time of day, Lovett wonders? Feeding the animals? Turning the cows out to pasture? Perhaps there are some repairs to do somewhere, fences to be mended or built or pulled down. Lovett could fill a book with what he doesn't know about farming. He supposes he will learn quickly.

He turns back to the bed, where his bags are sitting, and begins to unpack. Clothes in the simple pine bureau, notebooks on the tiny roll-top desk in the corner. He wonders if they lugged that thing up here just for him; it doesn't seem likely that they had a nice desk tucked up here in a spare room just waiting for a distant relative with a literary bent to come visit. 

The bed is small and covered in what looks to be a homemade quilt. Beside it is a rickety nightstand and a tiny lamp that will hardly shed enough light to read by at night. But as Lovett turns a slow circle, he can see himself feeling quite comfortable here. It isn't at all the small, dark hovel he was fearing. Neither is it a quaint, fairytale farm that he might have trouble taking seriously. No, it feels homey and comfortable. 

He'll never admit as much when he writes home to his parents.

———

Cooking smells are wafting up from downstairs, and outside, a voice calls out and another answers. The sun is already touching the treetops, and the men must be heading in from the fields for the day. Lovett has had a bath and put on clean clothes, so he reluctantly makes his way downstairs just in time to see the front door swing open and a group of dirty, sweaty men come bursting into the front hall, laughing and swatting each other on the back and shoulders. Walter is among them, of course, and two of his sons, including the one closest in age to Lovett, the one who shares his first name.

"Lovett!" Jon says when he spots him, and he comes over and throws his arms around Lovett, heedless of the barnyard stench that clings to him.

"Jon," Lovett says, wrinkling his nose and giving Jon a polite pat on the back. Now he's going to need another bath before bed.

"Jon!" says Ava's voice from the kitchen doorway. "Walter. Boys." At her tone, all of them turn to look, half already hanging their heads in shame. "What have I told all of you about coming into my house like that? There's a perfectly good pump outside for washing."

As the herd of them turn and head for the door again, Lovett notices that Tommy isn't among them. Perhaps he is the responsible one who stopped to wash up before coming inside like he was supposed to. But later, when they are all crowded around the dinner table and dipping into a pot of Ava's beef stew, Tommy is still nowhere to be seen. 

Lovett isn't sure why it is that he cares, especially with Jon at his elbow, regaling him with tales of his last trip in to San Francisco. 

"Say, uh," Lovett says when they reach a lull in the conversation, "where's that fellow that picked me up from the station today?" As if he doesn't know Tommy's name. "He ran off before I got a chance to thank him."

"Oh, Tommy?" Jon says, grinning fondly. "He pulled the short straw tonight. One of the cows has gone into labor, and he's sitting with her. Someone will bring his dinner out to him later on."

Lovett wrinkles his nose at the thought, Tommy squatting in the sawdust while the rest of them are here gorging themselves on good food. Short straw indeed. 

"I can take a bowl out to him." Lovett surprises even himself with the offer, so it's no wonder that Jon's eyebrows shoot upward. "What?" he says defensively. "I might as well take the opportunity to look around. Get to know the place."

"You would probably get a better look at it in the daylight," Jon says, "but sure, why not?"

It isn't until Lovett is traipsing toward the barn in the dark, steaming bowl of stew in one hand and hunk of bread in the other, that he feels truly silly. He's not sure what got into him, offering to come out here and serve food to a stranger. A stranger who's watching over a bellowing cow, for that matter. He hesitates at the barn door, then peeks his head inside, not sure what to expect. Carnage, perhaps. Blood flowing across the floor or Tommy flailing about, elbow-deep in...well, Lovett doesn't want to think about what he might be elbow-deep in. 

But the scene before him is much calmer than he expected. The barn is still and quiet, three of the four cows and three horses munching away at their dinner in their stalls. An orange-striped cat sits near one of the stall doors, licking its paw and rubbing it across its face. At the last stall on the left, Lovett sees the yellow glow of a flickering lantern, and he can just make out the sound of labored breathing and Tommy's voice, low and soothing. 

"I come bearing vittles," Lovett calls out, figuring it's best not to sneak up on a guy at a time like this. 

"Back here," Tommy says, his voice only just loud enough for Lovett to hear. Probably doesn't want to spook the cow. Maybe Lovett should have thought of that too, before he hollered like an idiot.

Squaring his shoulders, he makes his way back to the stall and hovers at the door, surveying the scene in front of him. The poor cow is on her side, nose toward the back corner of the stall, and Tommy squats there by her head, his hand splayed on her neck, petting her with a tenderness that makes even Lovett's heart clench. A steady stream of murmured encouragement falls from his lips, his head bent near her ear. 

When Lovett looks away from Tommy and down the cow's body, he wishes he hadn't. The floor may not be running with blood as he pictured, but there is something very uncomfortable happening around the hindquarters, and as soon as his eyes land on it, he looks away, swallowing hard against the sudden bile in his throat. Why, again, did he volunteer for this?

"Everything looking okay down there?" Tommy asks him, as if he would know. 

"Huh? Oh. Uh." Lovett holds up the bowl and bread, as if that might be answer enough. "I'm just here for food delivery. That's about as much as I can handle."

"Do you see the nose?" Tommy looks up at him, eyebrows raised in question.

Lovett fights against two warring impulses: one to please Tommy and one to keep from losing his dinner all over the straw at his feet. "Honestly, Vietor, if I look one more time I might be using your dinner bowl for a basin."

He expects annoyance from Tommy at his uselessness, but instead Tommy seems to be fighting a grin. "Fine. Here. Switch me places." 

Before Lovett can protest, Tommy is on his feet and coming to take the food out of Lovett's hands and set it aside. He gives Lovett a careful shove in the direction of the cow's head, then goes to take his position by her tail.

"Umm," Lovett says eloquently.

"Talk to her," Tommy says. "Pet her. Soothe her. I just need to check that everything's going as it should and we don't need to call the vet out here."

The cow can't possibly need this, Lovett thinks. Of all the cows in all the world, the vast majority of them probably give birth without any bumbling humans muttering nonsense in their ears. For all he knows, he's annoying it with his awkward patting and stream of consciousness. "There, there," he says, as if she is crying rather than snorting in pain. "You're doing great." Is she though? "Isn't that right, Tommy?" he asks.

Tommy is crouched, one hand on her haunch, seemingly undaunted by the scene in front of him. Then again, he has probably seen this a hundred times. A thousand, maybe. Who knows how long he's been a farm hand? He smooths his hand along the cow's swollen side as if feeling for something, and his mouth twists into a thoughtful frown, but when he looks up at Lovett, there is no worry in his eyes.

"She'll be fine," he says. "Everything is going as it should."

"How come you're out here in the dark by yourself then?" Lovett looks up at the bowl Tommy set on the wall between the stalls. It'll be lukewarm by now. "The other guys didn't seem too concerned."

Tommy shrugs, sitting back on his heels and wiping his hands on his pants. "They care more than they let on. Walter and Ava do pretty well for themselves, but they still can't afford to lose a good cow, and most birthing complications are pretty fixable if you get to them in time. A lot of farms just leave their animals alone during labor, maybe check on them every now and then, but we like to stay on top of things here."

His tone of voice makes it sound more like he personally likes to stay on top of things. Lovett may not know him from Adam, but he has a hard time imagining Tommy sitting at the dinner table, talking and laughing with everyone else, while one of the animals might be struggling. The way he strokes the cow's haunch one more time before standing up, the way he says "good girl" and smiles like she's a favorite child—the guy clearly takes his mandate to care for these animals quite seriously.

"Well." Lovett gets to his feet, trying not to grimace too obviously at the amount of straw stuck to his clothing. "I guess if you've got everything under control here, I'll just—"

"You don't have to rush off if you don't want to." Tommy retrieves his bowl and bread and gestures toward a pair of milking stools near the ladder that goes up to the hayloft. It isn't an explicit request for Lovett to stay, and frankly, Lovett doesn't know why he would stay, but he finds himself walking over to the stool anyway and sitting down, close enough to Tommy that Tommy's elbow brushes his when he picks up his spoon. It's the nice thing to do, keeping him company. He shouldn't have to eat by himself. 

"How many more of these are you expecting?" Lovett asks into the silence, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder at the stall and the panting cow.

"Just one," Tommy says. "We only have four dairy cows, and two of them had their calves last week. Petunia here is the third, and Poppy should go any day now."

"Petunia and Poppy, huh?" Lovett asks, grinning. "What are the other two?"

"Daisy and Dahlia." Tommy chuckles. It's a nice sound, that laugh. Low and rich. "I guess we aren't too creative."

"Oh well. I'm only judging you a little," Lovett says with faux seriousness.

"The calves haven't been named yet, if you think you could do better."

"Hmm, well, you could at least go for more obscure flowers, like...Begonia. Or Edelweiss."

Tommy snorts around his bite of stew, which turns into a coughing fit that has Lovett thumping him on the back and laughing with him. "Edelweiss?" Tommy says once he's recovered. "You must have made that up."

"I swear I didn't." Lovett feels like he's smiling too hard, but he can't seem to stop. "It's a flower found in the Alps."

"Ahh, well." Tommy looks pensive for a moment, then he turns back to his food. "We're a long way from the Alps here."

Later, when Lovett is walking back to the house, he berates himself for all of it. For keeping Tommy company in the first place, for coming out with a German word, for speaking about the Alps and conjuring images in their minds of the war and the evil men who built their fortresses at the top of the world, where they could look down on everyone else. He doesn't know if Tommy fought in the war, but he can assume; didn't every able-bodied man under 40 sign up as soon as they could? 

Lovett came here to escape. He came here to drag his life back on track. He didn't come here to get hung up on tall blonde men and to stick his foot in his mouth every step of the way. 

———

The sun has barely risen, the light in the room pale and gray when Lovett opens his eyes to a knock at his bedroom door.

"Lovett?" says Jon's voice, absurdly cheerily considering the time of day. "Up and at 'em!"

Lovett rolls over and pulls the pillow over his head. "Go away," he mutters, probably too quietly for Jon to hear him through the door.

Next thing he knows, a strong hand yanks away his pillow, then follows with the covers, and when Lovett rolls over, feeling murderous, he is met with Jon's beaming face.

"You didn't come here to lie around in bed all day, you bum," he says.

Lovett scoffs. "Didn't I?"

"Come on," Jon says, ignoring him. "You're helping me with the eggs this morning."

Somehow, Lovett manages to drag himself out of bed and throw on some clothes. He fears Jon would have heaved him out of bed and thrown him over his shoulder if he didn't get moving on his own. The man is a menace, and Lovett fully intends to whine to Ava about him, but when he gets downstairs and sees the breakfast spread laid out for them, he forgets his annoyance altogether. Eggs and bacon, a sizable stack of hotcakes, fried potatoes, biscuits, steaming coffee. If this is standard fare for the average farm hand, maybe Lovett can get used to it after all.

"Don't get used to this," Ava says as if reading his mind. She pours coffee into a mug for him and sets it down in front of his plate. "I don't cook up a spread like this every day."

But she did today, and Lovett is too busy tucking in to worry about what tomorrow might bring. Jon is already halfway through his own plate, so Lovett needs to catch up. 

As they eat, other men come and go, many of them only grabbing a biscuit or a couple slices of bacon and then heading out again, some sitting and wolfing down their portion before Lovett has even made it through half of his own.

"Don't dawdle," Jon says around his last bite of bacon. "We have plenty to do today."

Lovett isn't dawdling; he's eating at a normal human pace, thank you very much. But he makes himself shovel the food in a little faster, and when he's finished, he tries not to look too longingly at the last couple hotcakes. Jon is practically champing at the bit, and Lovett might find himself boxed about the ears if he goes for seconds.

Collecting eggs doesn't seem like too difficult a job, at least. The smell inside the coop is a little more unpleasant than he would have expected, but between him and Jon, it doesn't take long for them to finish. Lovett expects he'll get released to go back inside once he's finished his one chore for the day, but as soon as they hand their baskets off to another man to be cleaned, Jon takes him by the arm and drags him toward the barn. 

Thus begins a whirlwind day in which Lovett hardly knows what he's doing from one moment to the next. The morning milking has already been done, but Jon insists on giving Lovett a lesson anyway. He is completely unsympathetic to Lovett’s expressions of disgust as he pulls gingerly on a teat, struggling for what seems like an eternity before he succeeds in coaxing one stream of steaming milk into the bucket. Lovett grins then, but his triumph is short-lived. Poppy soon shifts her weight and kicks over the bucket, and Lovett jerks back so quickly he falls backward off the stool and lands on his ass, reducing Jon to hysterical, tearful laughter.

After that, Jon climbs into the hayloft and tosses bales down, and Lovett loads them into a truck to be driven out to the back pasture. Then they walk over to one of the storehouses, where boxes of cabbages are waiting to be loaded into a different truck, which someone will take out to one of the markets around lunchtime. Lovett is already sore and cranky by the time they break for lunch, but just when he's thinking of sneaking away back to his room, Jon asks him, "You ever been on a horse?"

Lovett has not, in fact, been on a horse. If it were up to him, he would go the rest of his life without ever getting on a horse. Unfortunately, it's beginning to look like it's not up to him.

When they get back to the barn, Tommy is already out front, leading one of the horses by the reins. As Lovett watches, he puts one of his feet in the stirrup and heaves himself up onto the horse's back in one fluid, absurdly graceful motion that sets Lovett's face burning just to look at him. Tommy reaches down to pat absently at the horse's neck, then looks up and spots Jon and Lovett and raises a hand to them in greeting.

"I got Bette all saddled up for you," Tommy says to Jon once they get close. 

"Great," Jon says. "You want Lovett with you then?"

Tommy shrugs, as if the very thought shouldn't be mortifying. "Sure."

Before Lovett knows what's happening, Jon is down on one knee in the dirt, lacing his fingers together to make a step. Tommy sits tall in the saddle, his fingers loose around the reins, his posture as relaxed as when he was sitting on that stool the other night, eating his meal with Lovett next to him. He’s not wearing his hat, and his hair looks like spun gold in the afternoon sunshine. He might as well be a Greek god, and here is Lovett, tired and sore with bad posture and curls gone flat under his hat. And about to clamber up there and sit behind him, and—oh God—touch him, hold onto him. Humiliating.

"Today, Lovett," Jon says, and Lovett would swear he must be enjoying this. He thinks he sees a ghost of a smirk on Jon's face, even though he's looking down at his hands.

With a resigned sigh, Lovett puts the toe of his shoe in Jon's cupped hands and grasps the back of the saddle. Before he even has time to prepare himself, Jon is pushing him up with such force that he nearly goes flying off the other side—probably would go flying if Tommy didn't grab him and steady him. "You alright there?" he says, and without waiting for an answer, adds, "Hold onto me."

"You sure you can't just tie me on like some sort of carcass?" Lovett mutters as he reluctantly winds his arms around Tommy's middle. Damn, but he feels good. Somehow he is both soft and solid at once, bound with lean muscle yet so supple in Lovett's arms, shifting forward to make sure that Lovett is comfortable behind him and then relaxing his posture a bit so they sit more comfortably together. Lovett can feel the muscles in his back shifting, more so when he nudges the horse forward with his heels and tugs at the reins to guide them out to the west of the barn, and it is pure torture. All he can think about is how different he must feel to Tommy. How repugnant. Soft stomach. Weak arms already sore from the work they've done today. Even his thighs feel inadequate, nestled as they are against the back of Tommy's.

"What are we even doing?" Lovett asks, before Tommy has a chance to say something witty in response to his carcass joke. "Jon has been dragging me around all day, but he never gives me a clue about what's next."

"Nothing too exciting," Tommy says. "We have to ride around the perimeter of the fence and make sure it's all intact."

Lovett scoffs. "That's a two-man job, huh?"

Tommy shrugs, and the motion nearly chafes against Lovett's cheek. "Sometimes we find a big gap and it takes two people to string some wire, or there's a tree down that needs to be moved." He chuckles a little, as if to himself. "I think mostly Jon wants any excuse to get up on a horse." 

Lovett turns to look, and sure enough, Jon looks happy as a clam, a faint smile on his face as he looks out across the farm, letting his horse follow the tail of Tommy's without much direction.

"Well, if he wanted to spend more time riding today and less time hauling around heavy things, I wouldn't have been opposed," Lovett says. Even in spite of his mortification, this is a much more pleasant activity. Lovett feels weary down to his bones, and the subtle swaying of the horse makes for a good excuse to sag against Tommy, though not so much as to be obvious. He is careful to keep a few millimeters distance between his chest and Tommy's shoulder blades, his chin and Tommy's shoulder. That scant space between them crackles with possibility, but Lovett does his best to ignore it, looking around him instead.

They find no breaks in the fence, which shouldn't come as a surprise. The weather has been beautiful, no wind or storms to speak of, and Lovett may be a city slicker, but he's never heard of a tree falling over on its own or a fence spontaneously jumping off its posts. As the ride drags on, Lovett finds he can't enjoy it quite as much as he did to start with. For one thing, it's starting to get painful. Crammed as he is on the back of the saddle, his legs are spread a hair too wide and his thighs chafe uncomfortably as the horse's gait rocks him back and forth. His already sore arms start to ache even worse as a struggles to find a way to hold onto Tommy that preserves his own modesty but also keeps him from falling off when the horse sees a twig on the ground, mistakes it for a snake, and skitters sideways like a child scared of its own shadow. 

"You alright?" Tommy asks when they are on the home stretch, the barn back in sight but still a long way off.

"I feel I should be honest with you, Thomas," Lovett says, shifting and wincing. "I've had better days."

Tommy snorts, turning his head just enough that Lovett can see his smile in profile. "Don't call me Thomas," he says. And, "Hang in there. We're almost done."

It's the way he says it, almost contrite, that clues Lovett in. Suddenly forgetting all about his own safety, he whirls around and fixes Jon with a glare. A good glare from him has been known to melt a certain kind of man on the spot, but Jon only grins at him, a slight redness in his neck and ears the only sign of guilt.

"You've been hazing me," Lovett says. He is trying to be angry. He was angry just a second ago, but somehow, looking at Jon's face, that feeling has started to fade away. His time at school was characterized by mocking from most of his peers, exclusion from most of the rest. It wasn't until university that he began to find his footing, to take pride in the fact that he could make people laugh, and to translate that pride into confidence. If people ever gave him a hard time, it was usually because they looked down on him, not because they liked him. Hazing is different. Hazing is a male bonding ritual. It means they see him as one of them—or at least they want to see him as one of them.

The revelation has his tightening his arms around Tommy's middle a fraction, before he realizes what he's doing and relaxes his hold again. Jon guffaws, slapping his thigh and then nudging his horse into a trot so he pulls up alongside Tommy and Lovett. "I was wondering when you were going to figure it out," he says.

"In my defense," Tommy says, "this was all Jon's idea."

None of it seems so bad in hindsight. So he's a little sore. So he had to ride behind Tommy in a fairly humiliating and uncomfortable position for a little while. It could have been worse. It could have been mean. "I hate you both," he says without meaning it. "You're awful, and you should be ashamed of yourselves."

Jon laughs all the way back to the barn, and even Tommy's shoulders shake a little, and Lovett has to fight hard not to let his own amusement show, to keep up the indignant act. But as they walk toward the house for a break and some of Ava's lemonade, Jon slings an arm around Lovett's neck, and Tommy thumps him roughly on the back, and Lovett is only human: he smiles, and he doesn't stop smiling for a long time.

———

They don't press him into working after that, but he works anyway. Not hard work—not slinging hay or loading the trucks—but when the mood strikes him, he does offer to collect eggs in the afternoon or dole out flakes of hay to the cows and calves in their stalls. It feels good to contribute something to the running of the place, and truth be told, he isn't as tempted to hole up in his room as he thought he would be. He's never been an introvert, though he does a good job of pretending he is. In reality, nothing energizes him more than making someone laugh or telling a story that has the room hanging on his every word. When he's sitting in front of his conspicuously empty notebook, he feels small and sad. When he's holding a fence post for Jon, talking his ear off, with the warm breeze ruffling his hair and the cows lowing in the distance, he feels more alive than he's felt in a long time.

It stands to reason that it would only be a matter of time before things went south on him. For the first couple of weeks, he spends most of his time only interacting with Jon and Tommy, Walter and Ava. At least five other men work on the farm, including another one of Jon's brothers, but most of them give Lovett a wide berth. At first Lovett thought they weren't used to long-term company, or maybe they thought they would be crossing some social boundary by getting friendly with the boss's guest, but as time goes on, he realizes it's not fear or shyness that's keeping them away. It's disdain.

The first incident is small enough Lovett can write it off as a fluke. A man named Harold is responsible for the general care of the chickens, and he must not take too kindly to Lovett's occasionally foray into egg collecting, because one morning when they are in the coop together, Harold smashes an egg on the back of his neck. His excuse is that he tripped and couldn't catch himself in time, but Lovett isn't sure he buys it. Not when Harold is barely holding back a smirk as he watches slimy yolk slide under Lovett's collar. Then again, maybe he's just being paranoid. He walks back to the house to shower and change clothes and resolves not to think of it any more.

Unfortunately, it only escalates from there. Harold pals around with a short, stocky guy named Ike. Ike is the go-to guy for all things manual labor, whether that's heaving bales of hay into one of the trucks or digging holes for fence posts or lugging full pails of milk from the barn up to the house for breakfast. Lovett pegs the guy as an idiot from the moment he lays eyes on him, but he doesn't realize he's a mean idiot until the day Ike motions him near under the pretense of needing help with the milking and instead squirts him in the face with a stream of warm milk. 

Lovett laughs that one off, because maybe Ike was just kidding around and Lovett doesn't get his sense of humor, but he can't laugh off the rest—Ike bullying him into mucking out the stalls under implied threat of violence, Ike putting cow pies in his shoes, Ike turning the horses loose and then trying to say it was Lovett's fault when Jon comes running. Sometimes Harold joins him in these little pranks, but Ike is the clear ring leader.

The worst part is that he's just smart enough to wait until no one else is around to pull these little pranks, and Lovett may be a lot of things, but he's no snitch. All he can do is suffer in silence. In the beginning, he tried to fight back the only way he knows how—with snarky comments—but that only made Ike meaner. 

If Lovett had to guess, it's probably some misguided sense of masculinity that has him and Harold so mad. Lovett can sort of understand it, really. He remembers how he and the others felt about the replacements during the war, especially the ones that showed up after some devastating battle, ready to fight. It's hard to be the one doing the hard work day-in and day-out, literally shoveling shit in Ike's case, and then have someone else come in and treat it like a game. Of course, Lovett thinks in this case Ike and Harold are simply being assholes about it, but still—he gets it a little.

It's clear from the get-go that it's going to escalate sometime, and when it does, it does in the worst possible manner. Lovett is whitewashing the fence around one of the round pens they use for exercising the horses; it had become weathered by the elements, and Jon asked him to give it a touch-up at breakfast that morning. Since that first day, it's been rare that Jon asks him to do something directly—usually he just waits for Lovett to get bored and come ask him for work—so Lovett takes the job seriously, making sure he works the paint until every little crevice in the wood, tongue poked out of the side of his mouth as he works.

He's concentrating hard enough that he doesn't even hear Ike walk up behind him until a shadow falls across him, blocking out the warm afternoon sun. At first he thinks it's Jon coming to check up on him, and he turns and looks up with a smile. That smile fades when he sees who it is.

"Look who decided to grace us with his presence," Ike says. 

The last couple days, Lovett has mostly stayed inside, trying to get some writing done. The words have been flowing easier lately, mostly reflections on his time overseas, stream of consciousness that feels good to get out on paper. He'll clean it up later, he keeps telling himself. Maybe try to make it funny, change the name of the main character, divorce himself from it as much as possible before sending it out in the world. For now, he's just glad to be productive. Evidently Ike isn't quite so enthused.

"As I keep telling you," Lovett says, setting his paintbrush on top of the can and getting to his feet, "I'm not on the payroll. I can grace you with my presence as much or as little as I want." 

He tries to smile, tries to make it a joke, but Ike is standing a little too close and looking a little too intimidating, fists clenched at his sides. "The stalls need mucking," he says, apropos of nothing. "I can take over here."

Lovett clenches his jaw. "Again," he says, through gritted teeth, "no one's paying me. You can't just—"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence before Ike plants his hands on Lovett's chest and shoves him backwards into the fence, into the wet paint. Lovett is so shocked that his first thought is for his clothes, which will be ruined now. He can picture the stripes of white across the back of his pants, the flecks of it that must have splattered up into his hair. He's embarrassed to feel his throat close with fear, his hands shaking as he balls them into fists. 

"I knew all along you were just a big, dumb bully," he says with a defiance he doesn't feel. He knows from experience that there's no way to get out of a situation like this, so he might as well get in a few verbal jabs while he has a chance. He doubts he'll be landing any actual jabs.

"Not my fault you make it so easy." Ike sneers at him. "It's fittin', ain't it? You out here painting a fence instead of doing a real man's work. You ain't no real man."

Lovett's blood runs cold at that. Logically, he knows Ike doesn't really know him, can't read his thoughts or guess his fears. Ike has the emotional intelligence of a turnip, and even if he does think he has Lovett figured out, it's because he knows only one paradigm through which to view the universe: physical strength and physical weakness. Lovett is one of the weak ones, and therefore he isn't a real man. Therefore there's something wrong with him. Therefore he's worthy of ridicule and physical intimidation. That's fine. Lovett can accept that. As long as Ike doesn't know the real truth. As long as he hasn't guessed just how much of a "real man" Lovett is not.

"Well," Lovett says, stalling for time, "if that's the way you feel, why don't you come here and—"

"Everything alright here?"

That voice. Lovett is ashamed of how it warms him, thaws the icy dread that crystallized in his veins. Tommy stands tall and solid with the sun at his back, casting his face in shadow. But Lovett doesn't need to see his face to know what it must look like. The rigid set of his shoulders is enough. The way his hands twitch at his sides, like he knows he's about to use them but is trying to decide how best to do it.

"Everything's just peachy," Ike says without even turning around to look at Tommy. "We're just having a friendly chat."

"Yeah, real friendly," Lovett echoes, barely containing an eye roll. In spite of all the dread he was feeling a moment ago, he feels an illogical compulsion to calm Tommy down, make him go away. Because how much worse will things get if someone has to swoop in and rescue him? 

"Hmm. Doesn't look too friendly from where I'm standing," Tommy says. Of course he would have to be stubborn.

Ike must sense he's not going to get rid of Tommy so easily, so he finally looks over his shoulder at him. "I was gonna paint this fence," he says. "I was just telling Lovett that if he wants to be useful, he can go muck the stalls."

"Jon told him to paint the fence," Tommy says. His voice sounds tightly controlled, thrumming with some emotion that Lovett can't place but that makes the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

"Yeah, well, Jon's not my boss," Ike says. "Walter's my boss, and I told him a week ago I was going to paint this fence."

Tommy shifts his weight restlessly. "Maybe you should have done it a week ago then." He leans around Ike. "Lovett, you got some paint on you. Maybe you better go in and wash that off."

"I can finish first," Lovett says, his face growing hot. "It's fine."

"Heaven forbid he get a little dirt on him, right?" Ike says, his mouth twisting with distaste. "Heaven forbid he lift a finger to do any real work." He's building up a real head of steam now, his gaze boring into Lovett like he wishes he could throttle him just by looking at him. He seems to have forgotten Tommy is there at all, because he takes another step forward and grabs Lovett by the shoulder, giving him a shove toward the house. "You probably belong inside anyway, cooking and cleaning with the women."

What happens next happens so fast Lovett almost misses it. Ike's shove has him stumbling backwards, almost ending up on his ass in the dirt, but he catches himself just in time to see Tommy grab Ike by the arm, spinning him around just as the other fist comes up and catches him across the jaw with an audible crack. Ike's head snaps back, a few droplets of blood hitting the ground near Lovett. Then it's Ike who's on his ass in the dirt, his face stormy and his hand held to his bleeding mouth.

Lovett looks back and forth between Tommy and Ike, unsure what he should do. Tommy shakes out his hand, wincing, but as Ike starts to get to his feet, he clenches it into a fist again. Blood glistens on his knuckles. His chest is heaving.

This should be the point where Ike backs off and runs for the barn with his tail between his legs, but as Lovett well knows, the guy's not the brightest bulb. That's the only explanation for how, the moment he's standing upright again, he lunges at Tommy with a roar. Ike is solidly built, yes, and he's strong, but he's also shorter even than Lovett, and Tommy has about a foot of height on him and far outstrips him in wingspan. Before Ike makes it within reach, Tommy's fist shoots out again, a quick jab, landing on his nose this time. Ike howls in a mixture of rage and pain and staggers backward. Blood streams from his nose, and he puts his hands to it as if to catch it, doubling over so most of it drips to the ground.

"Don't make me hit you again," Tommy says. It's that voice again, the one that raises goosebumps on every inch of Lovett's skin and sends his stomach into cartwheels. He wouldn't have thought Tommy could be menacing, but he's certainly pulling it off now, and it's a wonder Ike is still standing there.

"I've been working here fifteen years," Ike says, his voice thick around his bruised jaw. He pauses to spit some blood on the ground in the direction of Tommy’s feet. "I don't think Walter will be too happy about this."

Tommy shrugs, unconcerned. "Tell him then. He'll be hearing my side of the story too. And Lovett's."

He certainly won't be hearing Lovett's side of the story if Lovett has anything to say about—he's no baby who'll go running to the nearest adult at the first sign of a bully—but the threat of it does the trick, because Ike's face goes bright red and then he curses under his breath, turning to pick up his hat from where it landed in the dirt. Before he turns away, he looks at Lovett, like he's trying to summon up some perfect parting shot, but the words never come, only a menacing sneer that makes Lovett wonder if this isn't all over.

"Are you hurt?" Tommy asks the moment Ike has walked out of earshot.

"No, Tommy," Lovett spits, embarrassed. "No, I'm not hurt. Jesus, you didn't have to lay into the guy."

Tommy runs his tongue over his bottom lip, then absently shakes out his hand again, flexing the knuckles a few times. "I thought I was helping."

"Yeah, well." Lovett's hat flew off in the scuffle too, and he walks over to where it's lying by one of the fence posts and snatches it up. "Now he's going to come at me twice as mean the next time. Now I look like a weak little child who needs other people to bail him out when he gets himself in trouble."

Lovett's heart is pounding. Tommy punched a guy for him. For him. Like it was the easiest and most natural thing in the world. Maybe this is just Tommy—maybe he would do the same for Jon or any of the other guys if the situation arose—but Lovett still feels unsettled by it, his hands shaky and his stomach wobbly. Tommy is staring at him, his gaze so intense Lovett feels like he's being pierced through to the bone. It would be uncomfortable under the best of circumstances, but considering what just happened, it makes Lovett want to scream.

"I'm sorry," Tommy says at last. "I wasn't thinking."

"No you weren't," Lovett agrees. He slaps his hat hard against the thigh to knock the dust off. The back of it is freckled with paint. Freckled like Tommy's shoulders, which Lovett got a glimpse of the other day at the water pump, both he and Jon stripped to the waist and dumping water over their heads after a particularly long, hot work day. It rankles Lovett that the memory comes unbidden to him now. He presses his lips into a thin line and scuffs his toe in the dirt.

"Look, I—" Tommy starts to say, but when Lovett looks up at him again, he falls silent. His cheeks are red, his neck too, and Lovett is starting to think it might not be from anger or exertion. 

"Go fix up that hand," Lovett says shortly, nodding at Tommy's bloody knuckles, "before it gets infected."

He doesn't know why he's so angry. He should offer to help bind up Tommy's wounds himself—it's the least he could do—but instead he thinks about pouring alcohol over the scrapes, making Tommy hiss in pain. 

No, he does know why he's angry, but he doesn't want to think about it.

"I can finish the fence if you want," Tommy says. 

But Lovett is already turning his back on Tommy and picking up his paintbrush again. It's no use going in to wash up; the damage is already done. He needs this task to focus on. He can't stand the thought of going inside and being alone with his thoughts right now—or worse, staring at a blank page.

Tommy sighs behind him, but he doesn't say anything more. Lovett waits until he hears the crunch of dirt under Tommy's heels before turning to look over his shoulder, watching him walk away.

———

The ladder up to the hayloft seems impossibly tall. It isn't that Lovett's afraid of heights, not really, but when he places his hands on the rungs, they seem rickety and full of splinters, and it's a little too easy to imagine one snapping in two the moment he puts his weight on it. Who knows how old it is? Who knows whether it's safe?

But Jon said Tommy is up there, so Lovett is going up. Now. Before he can lose his nerve.

Once he's pulled himself up over the top of the ladder and into the loft, he lets out a sigh of relief, then makes the mistake of glancing over his shoulder at the ground far below him. With a muttered curse, he scurries farther away from the ledge, then pauses to look around him.

Hay rises in little mountains all around him, some of it packed up in bales and some in loose mounds. A little sunlight streams in through the small square window at the other end of the loft, but it's soft and dim in comparison to how brilliantly bright it is outside today. The longer the summer drags on, the hotter it gets, but it isn't quite so bad in here. Not cool by any means, but not quite so sweltering either.

"Tommy?" Lovett says quietly. That's his spot, Jon told him. He's made himself a little nest up there. 

The word "nest" doesn't quite cover the surprising homeyness of it. Tommy has spread a blanket on the wood and draped another over a couple of the hay bales. Lovett spots a little pile of books, an empty lunch pail, and Tommy's boots, sitting at odd angles like he tossed them carelessly away.

Tommy himself is resting up against a hillock of hay, his arms pillowed behind his head, his sleeves and pant legs rolled in a probably ineffective bid to find relief from the heat. He has removed his suspenders and unbuttoned a couple buttons on his shirt too, and Lovett feels his face heat up to look at him. 

"Well," he says, "you've made yourself quite the comfy little hidey hole, I see."

Tommy swivels his head to look up at him and grins. "The others don't like it up here. They say they can't relax where they work. Pity for them, but works out great for me."

Lovett shoves his hands in his pockets. "So you can relax here?" It doesn't look particularly comfortable, resting against all that scratchy hay. 

"The opposite, actually," Tommy says. "I can't relax anywhere, so I might as well take the spot no one else wants."

It sounds like a joke, so Lovett chuckles, but Tommy's expression remains placid, almost cryptic. Can't relax anywhere, huh? Lovett supposes he can see that. Tommy seems laid-back at first, but these past weeks, Lovett has come to realize that his mind is always going. He's always looking toward the next thing he should be doing and puzzling over how he can do it better. This fence post isn't straight enough. Those tomatoes weren't picked fast enough. Those weeds are getting out of control. Sometimes Lovett feels exhausted just listening to him—but then, he frequently feels exhausted these days, so who can tell the difference?

It's a good kind of exhausted, though. He would never have thought such a thing existed before he came here.

"Ike's been dismissed," he says, apropos of nothing. It's the reason he came up here in the first place, to talk to Tommy about this, but now that he's here, he wishes he didn't have to. Neither of them have mentioned the incident from the other day to each other until now.

"I know," Tommy says. Then, darkly, he adds, "Good riddance."

Lovett shakes his head. "He didn't have to be fired. Who told Walter? You?"

Tommy lets out a weary sigh. "Of course I did, Lovett." He tips his head back and closes his eyes, like he's so bored with this conversation he could drop off to sleep. "The guy's always been difficult, alright? The only reason he hasn't done to the others what he did to you is he knows any one of them would have been happy to knock some sense into him."

"So I'm the only one who couldn't stand up for myself. Great." Lovett's face is hot for an entirely different reason now, and he's starting to think this conversation wasn't a good idea after all. He isn't angry that Ike's gone—in fact, it's reason for celebration—but he wishes it could have happened any other way. Even if they didn't say as much, he knows the reason his parents sent him here is because they feared he was weak, and now look at him. He's just about proved their point.

Tommy sighs again and opens his eyes. "Come here," he says. "Sit down."

Lovett rolls his eyes, but he makes for the blanket-draped bales a few feet from Tommy, intending to take a seat there, but as he passes by, Tommy reaches out and takes him by the wrist, stopping him in his tracks. 

"No," Tommy says, and before Lovett can wrap his head around what's happening, Tommy is pulling him down next to him, tucking him right up against his side and throwing an arm around his shoulders. Lovett's lungs refuse to work for several seconds, his head buzzing with confusion and panic. He was right—the hay isn’t exactly comfortable to lean on—but Tommy is warm and solid, and it feels better than it should to be pressed against him. They fit together better than Lovett could have imagined, if he were prone to imagining such things.

(He has imagined it. He has. Did Tommy somehow notice?)

"You didn't have to tell Walter," Lovett says, because he has to fill the silence and distract from his own cavernous uncertainty in some way.

"Jon," Tommy sighs. For a moment, Lovett doesn't catch on that Tommy is talking to him. He's certain Tommy is about to complete a thought about the other Jon. Not once has anyone here called him by his first name, not even Ava. It's too confusing, with two of them running about the place. The one who was here first gets precedence. And yet when Lovett tilts his head to look at Tommy, Tommy is looking back at him, his gaze impossibly soft and his mouth turned up at the corners as if in amusement.

Lovett has no choice but to kiss him.

Some part of him expects Tommy to be shocked, to pull away at once and declare this whole thing to be a misunderstanding. Never mind that Tommy is really the one who started this, who pulled Lovett down next to him and held him close, who came to his rescue the other day like a fucking knight in shining armor. Of course Lovett would fail to shock him now. Of course Tommy would hook his hand under Lovett's jaw and pull him in closer and kiss him deeper.

Tommy's fingers are rough with calluses where they press against Lovett's neck. His mouth is soft by counterpoint, almost impossibly so. This isn't the first time Lovett has been kissed. There have been women—all mistakes—and even a few men, fumbling childhood dalliances and even a cliche foxhole story he refuses to think about now. But none of those kisses comes close to this one. They all had a tinge of defiance to them, like he had something to prove, but this time it's Tommy who seems to have something to prove, and he also seems determined to do it in the most careful and gentlest way possible. When Lovett fumbles for the collar of his shirt and twists his fingers in it, Tommy grasps him by the wrists and makes him unclench. When Lovett sucks in a shaky breath, Tommy hushes him and holds him closer to stop him from shaking.

Lovett is so caught up in it that he doesn't even know how he ends up on his back on the blanket, soft cotton fibers under his head instead of scratchy straw. Tommy holds himself on all fours and looks down at him, and Lovett has to turn his head to the side to escape the intensity of his gaze.

"Alright?" Tommy asks quietly, running one hand up Lovett's clothed calf and hooking it under his knee. Lovett has no idea what he's asking, but he nods anyway, because it doesn't matter. He'd give Tommy anything he asked for.

This time when Tommy kisses him, it's not so gentle. It's focused and intent, a slow dismantling of the few defenses Lovett has left. Tommy's hand slides up under his shirt to splay across his stomach, and Lovett nearly squirms away at the intimacy of it. He knows he is nothing next to Tommy, soft in the places Tommy is hard, round in the places Tommy is flat. But Tommy doesn't seem to be feeling anything like disgust now, touching him like this. In fact, he groans into Lovett's mouth and grinds down against his thigh, and Lovett gulps at the air when he feels how hard Tommy is already, like he's been waiting for this for a long, long time.

It's too risky to get undressed, even hidden as they are, but Tommy shoves Lovett's shirt up and gets both of their pants open while Lovett clutches at the blanket underneath him and tries to make himself believe this is actually happening. When Tommy wraps a hand around him, that certainly feels real—real enough that Lovett lets out an embarrassingly desperate sound and grabs Tommy's wrist to still him. If they don't go slow, this won't last. Lovett won't last. 

"You have to stop," Lovett says when Tommy shakes him off.

"Stop what?" Tommy asks with a grin. His hair has become mussed somehow, and Lovett tries to remember if he's run his hands through it. That past few minutes are such a blur that he's starting to fear he won't retain any of it once it's all over. No matter how he tries to concentrate, everything has the feeling of a dream, and it frustrates him, makes him want to sink his teeth into Tommy's shoulder just to find some sensation he can hold on to.

"Slow down," Lovett says. "Just slow down."

"Lovett," Tommy laughs. "I haven't even started."

And before Lovett can snap at him some more, he ducks down to press a kiss to Lovett's chest, his stomach, then wraps his lips around his cock, as easy as if it's something he does every day.

Yesterday, an hour ago, Lovett wouldn't have been able to picture Tommy in such a position, not in his wildest dreams. If he did try to envision this scenario—if he did—he would have put himself in Tommy's place and Tommy in his. But judging by Tommy's unexpected confidence, he has done this before, and he seems to relish it. He lets out a little hum of satisfaction as his sinks down until Lovett hits the back of his throat, and the hum turns into a moan when Lovett clutches at his hair. Tommy holds Lovett down by the hip to keep him from rolling his hips upward, and it's a good thing too, because Lovett doesn't think he could keep still without a little help. 

"Fuck," he whispers, drawing the word out as he throws his arm across his face. He can't look at Tommy right now, and hell if he wants Tommy to be able to look at him and see how much this is affecting him.

It may be warm in the hayloft, but Tommy's mouth is hotter, almost searing, and Lovett imagines it leaving a permanent mark on him, something to help him hold on to the reality of this moment once it's all over. Because this has to be a one-off, right? Maybe it's pity; maybe Lovett just happened to come upon Tommy when he was in a certain mood, and this is where it's brought them. Whatever the case, he can't imagine Tommy doing this willingly again. Affectionately squeezing his thigh. Sucking him off so languidly that Lovett feels like his orgasm is coming from far away, somewhere out on the horizon, and it might not make it to him for a day or two.

But eventually it does hit him, and with such surprising intensity that he barely has time to choke out a warning. Tommy ignores him and swallows down every last drop, licking him clean until he's tugging at Tommy's shirt and begging him to have some mercy. 

When Tommy sits back onto his heels and grins smugly, Lovett pounces at him, catching him by surprise and knocking him over backwards. "Let's see how you like it," he says as if it's a threat. Tommy lets out another laugh—an impossibly beautiful sound—but it trails off into a broken groan when Lovett gets a hand around him and guides him into his mouth.

Under normal circumstances, Lovett would probably be horrified about all of this. This place is neither clean enough nor private enough, and by now he and Tommy are both sweating through their shirts. Lovett's curls are plastered to his forehead and he has bits of hay stuck to his sleeves, and truth be told, he never much liked putting his mouth on other men. It makes him too self-conscious, especially when the man he happens to be sucking off is perfection incarnate. But his skin is still buzzing with his own release, and Tommy is making these choked-off gasping sounds that make him feel like his heart is going to explode in his chest, and all he can think about is making this as good as possible, so maybe Tommy won't hold any of this against him. Not the barn or the heat, not the sloppy job he's doing, not the whole stupid situation where Tommy had to stand up for him.

It certainly helps matters when Tommy goes off like a shot after what feels like no time at all. Lovett can't pity himself too much when he has to reach up and clamp his hand over Tommy's mouth to muffle an involuntary shout. "You want the whole damn farm to come running?" he says after he's swallowed the whole mess and sat up enough to fix Tommy with a half-hearted glare. But Tommy must not notice Lovett’s annoyance, because he's laughing again, thumbing a tear from the corner of his eye, his face flushed crimson.

"It's not polite to laugh at the guy who just showed you a good time," Lovett grouses, but really it seems more like Tommy is laughing at himself, and Lovett is too baffled and sated to do anything but flop back down on top of him and bury his face in his neck.

"Sorry," Tommy says, burying both hands in Lovett's hair and scratching along his scalp in a way that makes him want to purr. "It's been a while for me."

Lovett hums in understanding, then pushes himself up on his elbows so he can see Tommy's face. "A while, huh? That have anything to do with why you wouldn't answer when I asked what brought you here?"

It's a bad time to pry—awful post-coital conversation—but Tommy chuckles at him and reaches up to thumb at his bottom lip. "Yeah, you could say that." When Lovett just stares at him, he sobers a little. "I'll tell you the story someday. It's boring, really. Your average, everyday heartbreak."

Lovett hums in understanding at that too. He won't press anymore. He doesn't need to. "Everyday, huh?" he says instead. "Hopefully not every day." 

It's too presumptuous a joke, and he can feel himself beginning to blush, but Tommy doesn't let him wallow in it long. He grips Lovett's chin and pulls him in for another kiss, this one as soft and lingering as their very first. Once it's over, Lovett drops his head back down to Tommy's chest. He listens to Tommy's heart thudding sure and strong under his ear and decides that talking is overrated anyway. 

———

It's not a one-off, and it must not be pity either, because after the tryst in the hayloft, it's like the floodgates have opened. Tommy starts cornering him behind the woodshed, in dark corners of the barn, out in the back pasture where there's no one around to see them. Most of the time it's just kissing—too risky to do anything else—and Lovett always comes away from the encounters feeling shaky and weak-kneed in a way he isn't used to. He prides himself on being able to laugh in the face of sentiment; yes, it's a defense mechanism, but it's a damn good one and he won't apologize for it. But now all it takes is a certain look from Tommy, a brush of the backs of his fingers across Lovett's cheek, and Lovett's insides dissolve.

Jon seems to notice how close they're getting, which is something Lovett doesn't even want to think about. He heard—from Tommy, of course—about the whole mess with Ike, and he makes it clear in no uncertain terms that he thinks Tommy did the right thing, but he seems a little troubled by it too, as if he thinks they aren't telling him the whole story. Well, they aren't telling him the whole story, but only because that's what self-preservation dictates. Lovett almost feels bad about it, and he's sure Tommy feels worse, but what choice do they have?

Lovett tries to make up for it by picking up some of the slack in Ike's absence. He's writing more too, carrying a notebook around in his pocket and scribbling down a sentence or two here and there when he has time. Tommy catches him at it one day and asks what he's writing, and he can only shrug. He still doesn't know, but that doesn't bother him as much as it used to. It will coalesce into something someday, and until that, he has this farm and Tommy and hands that are not nearly so soft as when he arrived.

One morning he's lingering in the kitchen when Tommy walks in and gives him a wink behind Ava's back. Lovett clears his throat and drums his fingers on the table, and when Ava turns to look at him, a smile in her eyes, he can't help how he opens his mouth and says, "Listen, Ava, at the end of the summer..."

"Oh," she says, "don't even think about it, Jon. You have a room with us for as long as you like."

Does she really mean that, or is she merely trying to be a good host? No matter. He can make it up to her. He can have Tommy take him into town so he can find a job and pay rent indefinitely. He'll pay her more than he is now even, because she deserves it, and because he wants to stay, and—

Tommy catches his eye from the other side of the table. His mouth is curved into a soft smile, and Lovett fears that Ava will notice how it makes the blood rush into his cheeks. It's silly to think he could have this with Tommy. To be happy again. No—to be happy for the first time. Something will go wrong eventually; they'll get caught and have to skip town, or they won't get caught but they'll fight or get bored of each other or hurt each other in some other terribly mundane fashion. It's so hard for Lovett to even begin to trust this.

But the way Tommy looks at him, it makes him want to try.


End file.
